Mixed Race Studies

Despite such stark inequality, black and indigenous populations have not, until recently, mobilized along racial and ethnic lines for reform. For one thing, the idealization of mixed blood might have made minorities with lighter skin less willing to ally with their darker counterparts. Rather than fight for indigenous rights, for example, it was preferable for many to blend in as mestizos, especially because mestizos were afforded a higher social status as exemplars of the national ideal.

Deborah J. Yashar, “Does Race Matter in Latin America?,” Foreign Affairs, Volume 94, Number 2 (March/April 2015). https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/south-america/2015-02-16/does-race-matter-latin-america, http://omnilogos.com/how-racial-and-ethnic-identities-shape-the-regions-politics-in-latin-america.

A dark-skinned, curly-headed person who identifies as African American may, indeed, have much in his or her history and upbringing to justify that identification. But he or she may also have a white grandparent and several Cherokee ancestors. Thus, returning to the example of glaucoma, it is more important to know a patient’s family history than to assess his or her race. And collecting family history ought to mean not only compiling a list of which diseases family members have, but making some attempt to assess common (familial) habits such as diet and life experiences (e.g., first- versus second-generation immigrants, living conditions, or same versus widely varied work experience and geographical locations). Similarly, when the history of passing for white is ignored, those who identify themselves as “white” are assumed to have no ancestral “black blood.” Finally, immigration patterns constantly change. A “black” person walking into a Boston, Massachusetts clinic could easily be the child of a recent immigrant from Ethiopia or Brazil who has a genetic makeup as well as cultural and environmental exposures that differ significantly from the descendents of 19th century US slaves from the western coast of Africa.

Braun L, Fausto-Sterling A, Fullwiley D, Hammonds EM, Nelson A, Quivers W, et al., “Racial Categories in Medical Practice: How Useful Are They?” PLoS Medicine, Volume 4, Number 9 (September 2007), pages 1423-1428. http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.0040271.

“Most people think that it’s obvious that races are real biological categories. However, most of the scholars who study race think that races are invented categories. When one group of people sets out to oppress another, they “racialize” them—that is, they think of them as fundamentally different from and, importantly, inferior to themselves. Prior to the trans-Atlantic slave trade, sub-Saharan Africans did not consider themselves members of a single, homogeneous “black” race. Instead, they identified themselves as members of any one of a number of distinct groups—as Akan, Wolof, Mbundu, etc. The idea of “blackness” was a European invention, designed to legitimize the oppression of Africans.”

The idea that races are invented will probably sound crazy to a lot of people. They’ll think of it as a silly idea that only an academic who’s out of touch with the real world could come up with. Surely, there are visible features such as skin color, hair texture, facial morphology, and body build that set the races apart from one another!” —David Livingstone Smith

Robert J. Benz, “Race Delusion: Lies That Divide Us,” The Huffington Post, June 1, 2016. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-j-benz/race-illusion-its-all-in-_b_10095430.html.

E pluribus unum. Out of many, one. America’s boast brazenly embossed on its coins. But in New York a blind man can find his way across the city by his nose, by the odors of food rising from the streets and through open windows. His ears can take him anywhere across the five boroughs. Even when the language spoken is English, he can tell the difference in the accents. He knows he is either uptown or downtown, in African American Harlem or Spanish Harlem, in Caribbean Brooklyn or in East Asian Queens. He knows when he enters the WASP enclave, or the territories carved out by Europeans.

“You think you are the United Nations?” Tony sneered when Anna claimed ancestors from around the globe. “In America, you are black. Don’t go thinking other people see their relatives in you.”

Tony is African American. If other bloods run through his veins, he pretends not to know. His Africanness comes before his Americanness, he said to Anna. And it did not matter when Anna pointed out that except for the two who had been dragged onto slave ships from Africa, he and all his relatives, his parents and grandparents and great-grandparents going back for more than four hundred years, had all been born and raised in America.

Elizabeth Nunez, Anna In-Between, (New York: Akashic Books, 2009), 209.

The half-Chinese children on growing up find little difficulty in obtaining work or in entering into marriage with the surrounding white population. The girls in particular are attractive and good-looking. On the other hand, the Anglo-negroid children when grown up do not easily get work or mix with the ordinary population.

Maurice Broody, “The Social Adjustment of Chinese Immigrants in Liverpool,” The Sociological Review, Volume 3, Issue 1 (July 1955) pages 65-75. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-954X.1955.tb01045.x.

Marriage and cohabitation have become so common in New York and Boston as scarcely to attract attention, except as the astounding fact occasionally breaks upon one, that there are whole blocks and rows of houses with ‘every tenement occupied by families the head of each of which is, the one black and the other white!’

“Amalgamation, North and South,” Sacramento Daily Union, Volume 24, Number 3619 (November 3, 1862). (Source: California Digital Newspaper Collection, http://cdnc.ucr.edu/cdnc/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&cl=search&d=SDU18621103.2.13&srpos=4.)

“Along with my personal identity struggles, the historical legacy of racism in the United States for communities of color informs my experiences. My current work responds to the police killings of unarmed Black men, women, and children across America. While this is a constant attack on the Black community, the increased international media attention, public awareness, and public movements are new phenomena. The recent killings of Trayvon Martin and Eric Garner to Tamir Rice and Michael Brown, illustrate that Black victims can range in age from 12 to 50 years old. This raises the question of the value of Black bodies in contemporary America, which is linked to a long history of violence against its Black population through slavery, Jim Crow, and mass incarceration. My aim is to locate myself in this discussion as a biracial Black man who has both been the victim of racism and has in some instances “passed” for white because of my light skin. I see this as the cost of a legacy of racism that is particularly troublesome to me and this conversation must continue.” —Michael Dixon

Tasha Mathew, “Michael Dixon: A Discussion About Race, Representation, and Biracial Identity,” Or Does It Explode, March 14, 2016.
http://www.ordoesitexplode.com/#!Michael-Dixon-A-Discussion-About-Race-Representation-and-Biracial-Identity/pidwk/56e5a6850cf26296007f90ad.

This desire to own all aspects of a hyphenated identity at once was probably the most pronounced unifying theme for the conference participants, who spanned the gamut of skin tones and religious observance levels. We shared the experience of feeling like outsiders, and many shared an overlapping constellation of marginalized identities like non-whiteness, queerness and far-left politics (although it soon became clear that not everyone had the same political views on Israel and Palestine). Presented by the Jewish Multiracial Network and by Jews for Racial & Economic Justice, the event included African Americans and Latinos and Asians alongside Sephardic and Mizrahi Jews.

Sigal Samuel, “Jews of Color Get Personal and Political at First-Ever National Gathering,” Forward, May 4, 2016. http://forward.com/opinion/340018/jews-of-color-get-personal-and-political-at-first-ever-national-gathering/.

Years passed, and the Johnstons prospered. They moved to Keene, New Hampshire, and occupied a place of professional and social esteem in their community. They never said a word about their racial background—not even to their children, who absorbed the same toxic prejudices as their white peers. One day, Albert Jr. came home spouting some racial epithet, and his father took him aside to explain that he literally didn’t know what he was talking about. The revelation shook Albert Jr. A crisis of identity followed, and led, eventually, to his arrival in [Louis] De Rochemont’s office. Up until then, the family had maintained their secret. Albert Jr.’s story, if published, would blow their cover. The family agreed to face the consequences, and let the story proceed. The Johnstons would later tell the press that their magnanimous and tolerant neighbors never cared, that the Reader’s Digest story and its subsequent adaptations had no adverse effect. The fact is, the town did convulse, and whispered slurs behind the family’s back. Albert lost his practice, and eventually moved with Thyra to Hawaii, whose racial complexity made it a more hospitable place.

David Kalat, “Lost Boundaries (1949),” Turner Classic Movies, (February 2016). http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/81854/Lost-Boundaries/articles.html.

Yes, we get that race doesn’t exist, but that doesn’t mitigate the concept’s very real impact on the everyday racism and anti-blackness that saturates our culture. [Rachel] Dolezal’s poor facsimile co-opts a struggle foreign to her own for personal gain. This is the pinnacle of white privilege: being white, pretending to be Black, and profiting from this masquerade while countless actual Black people continue to suffer social, economic, and political deprivations by mere virtue of their actual-Black existence.

Sincere Kirabo, “The Myth of Transracial Identity,” The Humanist (April 18, 2016), http://thehumanist.com/commentary/myth-transracial-identity.